Representations of Women in Italian Literature and Music from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century



The course aims to analyze the female figure in Italian literature and music from the 19th and 20th century. The lessons will address all different portrayals of women: from symbol of youth, Christian devotion or exposed sensuality in the early eighteenth century (Leopardi, Manzoni, Verga, D’Annunzio), to great female characters in Italian Opera (Verdi, Puccini). Then we will go through the authors who see women as everyday life muses (Saba, Caproni), as renewed angelic figures (Montale) or as icons of insensibility and sentimental apathy (Moravia, Cassola), throughout all the works from the twentieth century. In studying the female figure’s evolution, particular reference will be made to music, focusing especially on singer-songwriters from the seventies: we’ll be meeting wives, prostitutes, adolescents, friends, temptresses, workers who represent a multifaceted picture of women, following events and changes in Italian society and history (Battisti, De Andrè, De Gregori, Guccini, Dalla, Jannacci, Conte).